Is there anyone who misses King Flower as much as I do? I sure hope not, because that drama is one hot mess and unless one has the ability to sift through rubble for the treasure then this one is a miss. I’ve waited four (4!) long years for Chris Wu to really steal a drama to the extent he’s done here, and with a character that I love to the depth and breath I’ve rarely felt in years. Whenever I hear the name “Terry” from now on, I’ll be thinking about him. I hate leaving things on the cusp of being done so it looks like SETTV won’t be releasing an OST for the drama which it usually does when it has a hit on its hands. KF was the ratings leader for the night for the entirety of its run but it never was a bona fide hit so the great music in this drama is going to have to be assembled ourselves. I’ve provided the download links for the majority of the songs but I realized that I overlooked the Dream Girls contributions to this drama. I wouldn’t have loved KF this much if it didn’t have an amazing OST: opening theme “Because You’re There” by Dream Girls, closing theme “A Women Like a Girl” by S.H.E., Guan Jun’s song to Da Hua “Why Bother?” by James Wen, Terry-Liang Yen is scored to “Memorial Day” by Aaron Yan, Terry’s love for Da Hua is accompanied by “Don’t Change” by Olivia Ong, and later in the drama we have Da Hua letting Guan Jun go with “Return to Me” by S.H.E and “Let You Go” by Dream Girls, and finally the entire drama gets an about turn when Da Hua’s feelings for Terry is scored to “Love Microwave”, which is a Yen-J written score. Let’s relive some KF moments since today marks the first Sunday with no more KF to get all happy and/or angry over, and then download the Dream Girls EP below to complete the drama OST collection that I’ve assembled for the KF fans.

Click here to download Girl’s Talk EP (sharebeast .rar file)

password to unzip: yeukpopv

01.Dying For Love
02.Don’t Stop The Music
03.因為有你在 (Because You’re There)
04.愛情微波爐 (Love Microwave)
05.讓你走 (Let You Go)

I have to confess to not liking this trio when they first debuted, coming across as a leggy and sexy S.H.E. wannabe but very little talent. Their most recent EP called Girl’s Talk has changed my mind about them, and three of the songs from the mini-album helped to really amp up the mood of KF. The drama’s theme song was the synthesized “Because You’re There” which I love despite it being totally a Britney Spears-esque mix, but later in the drama two of their ballads made its appearance. The first was “Let You Go” when Da Hua was walking in the rain after being dumped by Guan Jun and that one is lovely, but my fave song off the EP called “Love Microwave” made a last minute and well-positioned appearance in episode 21 when Da Hua is writing her unsent texts to Terry and he’s outside her window saying goodbye. That song highlights the vocals of the Dream Girls leader Emily Song (Song Mi Tai, their sole Korean member) and I totally adore its girly hopeful vibe. The song talks about a girl having a hard time confessing and wishing for a love microwave to allow her to slowly heat up the feeling to convey. I also think both Tia Li and maknae Puff Guo have also improved tremendously as singers.

King Flower Opening Theme “Because You’re There”:

Love Microwave Cut from KF and Official Dream Girls MV:

I noticed after my umpteenth time watching this scene that when Da Hua wrote the first text to Terry, she wrote his name in Chinese as “貼利” which is what the TW-netizens took to calling him because it was the Chinese character pronunciation of his name Terry (pronounced Tie Li). LOL, that was a cute little throwaway reference that the production company knew exactly what the messages boards were saying about the drama and the characters. This is the first drama that I feel like makes so much more sense in context, but of course as times passes no one will know the context anymore and how extraordinary it was the drama ended with Da Hua and Terry on that plane. I cannot stress enough times that James Wen was the lead in this drama. Forget leading man, he was intended as the lead ACTOR, above Nikki Hsieh’s leading lady and way above Chris Wu’s second male lead. For him to end up shafted throughout the entire drama was just unreal to see happen, even if it was exactly what the viewer in me wanted and needed. So the ending for this drama was as much as SETTV could do, which is to say in no uncertain terms that Da Hua picked Terry, but then not shove it in the face of James Wen’s Lin Guan Jun with lots of shippy scenes in the end. You can call it a cop-out, but I really appreciate that SETTV listened to the viewers overwhelming preference for Terry in the context of this story and made it happen. Even if the way they did it was narratively insane. It was like the last stretch of the race everyone went off course, but in the end the car made it past the finish line. I’m way to relieve to have survived this ordeal too complain. And I think the TW-netizens complaining are really “you give them a inch and they want a mile.” Let’s listen to some nice music instead to ease us down from the crazy driving.